Southern Testing celebrate 50 years of Site Investigation!

Who’d have thought it?! This year Southern Testing Laboratories Ltd, are celebrating their 50^th year of working within the Site Investigation industry.

In honour of this, the Company has been celebrating in a number of ways; reflecting on historical achievements, photographs and “blasts from the past” on our social media pages, to organising a party for our staff and a client seminar later in the year.

Over the last five decades the Company has introduced many innovative processes and applications that have helped to shape the way we work today.

However, in many ways the overall process of carrying out a ground investigation has changed very little. Sometimes the old ways are still the best, whether it be using a cable percussive rig to drill a borehole or undertaking a site walkover on foot.

Other aspects of our project processes are quite different. Advances in site plant, in situ testing equipment, IT technology, health and safety, British Standards, industry best practice and environmental regulations make our day to day projects both easier and safer than they might have been back in 1967. It is interesting to think what our founders would have thought today if they saw our tablets for on site data collection and logging, GIS mapping tools, our vast in house database of completed projects now numbering over 45,000 or our multiple regional offices.

To mark this milestone, a celebration was organised for the staff and their families last weekend. The festivities included a sit down meal, speeches, live music and games. A great evening was had by all and of course no celebration is complete without a cake, which in this instance was made in the likeness of our head office Keeble House in East Grinstead.

Here’s to the next 50 years and beyond!